One canal …… 18 pictures ……. 47 or so years ago ..... walking the Rochdale in 1979

A short series bringing together for the fist time pictures I took walking the Rochdale Canal from Princess Street to the Castlefield Basin.*

Most have appeared before but not together in the order in which I walked the canal back in 1979.

But given my memory and my total failure to make notes of each shot at the time I took them some may well be out of sync.

Back then the canal was still in a shabby state and despite the work of restoration there was still an air of decay, which was added to by the state of the buildings which stood along its path.

Many had seen better days, a few were derelict waiting for something to happen, and I since I walked the walk some have been demolished and some have been renovated.

The first stretch from Princess Street took in the power station, which had supplied steam to the neighbouring offices and warehouses, through pipes which ran the length of the canal.

Passing these pipes could be a tad unnerving as in places steam would escape from the joints, leaving you wondering if you would suddenly encounter a burst of scalding water. 

The pipes have gone, the overgrown towpath has been cleaned up, and sections of the canal have been transformed, which rather makes the 18 pictures something special.

Although I am the first to admit the quality of some are iffy.

Location; The Rochdale Canal

Pictures; The Rochdale Canal, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One canal ….. 24 pictures ,walking the Rochdale Canal in 1979, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20canal%2018%20pictures

The lost orchards of Chorlton

Today I went looking for the Newbridge pear and the Rose of Sharon apple.

They had been grown here in the 1840’s and had caught the eye of the journalist Alexander Somerville who reported that both pear and apple were “fresh, beautiful and healthy.”

I wrote about them recently and it occurred to me that I should go on an adventure with my old botanist chum and see if we could locate any last vestiges of them.  David reckoned that there were still orchards on the other side of the Mersey not far from Jackson’s Boat, but the weather was against us and never being one for getting wet the quest has been postponed.

But in the meantime I set out for find the ones that Alexander Somerville described.  Now these belonged to the farmer James Higginbotham and they took in the land either side of what is now Crossland Road up as far as Higson Avenue.

But there were others dotted across the township.  Now the productive life of an apple tree is about 30-40 years although some can go for 80 to a 100 years,* so with this in mind I doubt that any we find today will date from 1847, but you never know.

So I travel in hope, but even if we don’t find any Newbridge pears or Rose of Sharon apples what fascinates me is that they confirm the possibility that were making cider and perry here in the township.  Of course most of our apples were sent to the Manchester markets but some will have been retained for home use.  And because the Newbridge pear is a perry pear it follows that either we were making perry or we were sending it on to be turned into perry.

All of which also means there is now the hunt for an old press, and if that could be found I would really be very pleased.

*And there are examples which were planted at the beginning of the 19th century

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; Higson’s orchard from a detail of the OS map of Lancashire, 1841, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Walking the Woolwich markets …….. 1914

Now I don’t usually just lift someone else’s work directly off the page, but today I am breaking that rule.

And I am breaking it because the description of the Woolwich markets back in 1914, from The Woolwich Story is so good it deserves to appear just as E.F.E. Jefferson presented it.

The book is a wonderful account of all things Woolwich, while chapter XV, vividly recreates a walk through the market on the eve of the Great War.

The account runs across 19 pages and is fascinating, both because of its description of the market but also as an insight into how we lived just over a century and a bit ago.

Location; Woolwich in 1914

Pictures; Woolwich market in the early, 20th century, from Woolwich Through Time is at Woolwich, Kristina Bedford, 2014

*The Woolwich Story, E.F.E. Jefferson, 1970 pages 156-7

Half a century of Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre ….. the exhibition

Yesterday I dropped into the major new exhibition celebrating fifty years of storytelling through costume, craft and performance at the Royal Exchange Theatre.

It’s a sobering thought that I have pretty much lived almost all those 50 years.

It’s a place I have proudly shown off to family and friends, as well as dining in its restaurants and of course watched a heap of performances ranging from Shakespeare to musicals and on one wonderful occasion saw our Josh perform in a youth production.

And over the years has been the backdrop to meet ups and quite solitary moments so I had to slide along and enjoy this new exhibition which is entitled “Mythic Reinvention celebrating fifty years of storytelling through costume, craft and performance at the Royal Exchange Theatre.

Responding to the unique architecture of our Victorian Great Hall, the exhibition transforms the art of storytelling into an immersive space where the mythic and modern collide.

 Curated from our extensive costume archive that is home to over 25,000 individual pieces, past productions will echo into the present and reveal how stories continue to reflect societal change and deeper human truths through a new lens.

Explore up close the craft of designing and making theatre costumes, where threads of character and stories connect across five decades, through different genres and generations. 

Step inside the inner workings of the theatre’s costume department and hear from the artists who created some of the Exchange’s most iconic productions. Each costume reveals a story of imagination, skill and collaboration, offering a rare glimpse into the artistry that has shaped the Royal Exchange Theatre.

Part exhibition, part installation, Mythic Reinvention invites audiences to immerse themselves in the evolving mythology of storytelling, exploring how costume reimagines stories across time and how those stories continue to define, reflect and shape who we are today.

Mythic Reinvention: An exhibition celebrating 50 Years of Costume and Craft is open from 16 September until 15 November 2026”.

But be careful as “opening hours will vary throughout the exhibition due to other performances and events taking place in the theatre".

I turned up just a little before the doors opened at midday, but the bonus was a conversation with two people from north Manchester also waiting to go in and that is always a bonus.

Location; Mythic Reinvention, Royal Exchange, St Ann’s Square

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 2026

*Mythic Reinvention, Royal Exchange https://www.royalexchange.co.uk/event/mythic-reinvention-exhibition/

When your life comes packaged in just eight pages…….

 It’s a silly title really but it sprang to mind after seeing Michael Kay’s post featuring the brochure for Manchester Polytechnic.

It is dated 1970 and must have been produced just a few months after I washed up in the city to do an Arts degree at the College of Knowledge on Aytoun Street.*

I had arrived in the September of the previous year, with a suitcase, an address for a bed sit and no idea what was ahead of me.

Indeed, as a lad from southeast London Manchester was only the second city I had ever experienced.

And pretty much soon after I arrived, I embraced the place spending the hours when I should have been in the library wandering the city centre, which gave me a fascination for the buildings, and the history. 

Along the way I made some lasting friendships and many more which have dropped away over the years.

As for the degree, well I learned a few things, but like others not as much as I had done during A levels.

But the three years also introduced me to the other two faculties that made up the Poly, and while I did visit John Dalton the science place, it was the Art College, All Saints and the old Till Kennedy Building which were a second home.

The three faculties of Art, Commerce and Science had been separate educational institutions and mine betrayed its origin with the title of Commerce which offered many vocational courses, making it an odd mix of students.

Till Kennedy, Student's Union, 2015

Over the years I have written about the famous Saturday nights which hosted a pile of groups which straddled the late 60s and early 70s, along with equally memorable times at the Students Union which to many of us will always just be the Till Kennedy Building.*

It was built in 1905 for William Righton whose name appears above the main entrance.

He was a draper and the building offers up plenty of clues to its origins as a drapers shop.

The spacious ground floor was perfect for accommodating a vast range of fabrics while the large windows allowed the maximum amount of daylight into the building, a feature complimented by the top-lit gallery with the cutaway floor providing extra light to penetrate down into the main shop.

The Art College, 2024

Now this had always puzzled me as had the benching around the gallery and only now have I discovered that these benches were where “the cloth was measured.”***

The College of Knowledge, 1969

Over the years I have explored the history not only of the College of Commerce but also the Art College with its links to many of the artist I admire, as well as Mr. Dalton.

Much of which came flooding back with the brochure with its images of the city and its optimistic take on Manchester in the 1970s.

And what is remarkable is that a full fifty-six years after it was published many of the buildings and places it featured are still there.

Sadly, my own College was found wanting and now is at the centre of a residential complex, while On the Eight Day has moved slightly further up Oxford Road and now inhabits a new build, while Manchester Piccadilly Railway Station was transformed by a make over at the start of this century.

Still the eight pages make for an interesting read, but not a nostalgic one, after all I never left the city and so took the changes in my stride.

That said I do remember that two years after the Poly came into existence, its entire collection of student accommodation comprised six flats for six married couples in the former Fireman’s block of the Mill Street Police Station off Grey Mare Lane.

We had married in the December of 1972 and moved in a few months later as one of the first six couples.  

For all of us living in east Manchester was a tad different from the south of the city but perfectly fitted with how we saw ourselves.

Leaving me just to thank for posting and giving me permission to use the pictures.

Location; Manchester in 1970

Pictures; Manchester Poly brochure, courtesy of Michael Kay, The College of Commerce, 1969, Butterworth Street, Luft M 1991, m55776, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, The Art College, 2024, and the former College of Commerce, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the former Till Kennedy Building, 2015 courtesy of Andy Robertson

The College of knowledge in 2023

*The College of Commerce.

The entire student accomodation in 1972

**Manchester Polytechnic, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Manchester%20Polytechnic

****Manchester An architectural history, John K Parkinson-Bailey, 2000, Page 317

The Kickety Brook, Stretford, once a vital part of our flood defences

I first walked the Kickety Brook with my old botanist friend, David Bishop.

It doesn’t look much but it was vital in its day for protecting the Duke’s Canal at Stretford.

The Canal dates from the 1760s and was cut to bring coal into the heart of the city and also was used by our farmers and market gardeners to ship their produce into the Manchester markets.

But the canal was close to the Mersey which could flood with little warning. In July 1828 flood water transported hay ricks from the farm behind Barlow Hall down to Stretford only later to take them back, while later floods proved to be even more destructive with one destroying the bridge across Chorlton Brook.

It was, wrote Thomas Ellwood the local historian
“no uncommon thing to see the great level of green fields completely covered with water presenting the appearance of a large lake , several miles in circuit,” and he recorded six major floods between  December 1880 and October  1881

By then the stone weir had been in place for nearly a century.  It had been built after a heavy flood in August 1799 had broken the banks where Chorlton Brook joined the Mersey.  This had led to fears that the Bridgewater Aqueduct across the flood plain could be damaged in a subsequent flood.

The weir was designed to divert flood water from the Mersey down channels harmlessly out to Stretford and the Kicketty Brook.  Not that it always worked.  Soon after it had been built flood water swept it away and during the nineteenth century neither the weir nor the river banks prevented the Mersey bursting out across the plain.

This happened in 1840 and in the following year it was rebuilt by the engineer William Cubitt. After litigation the cost of repair was borne by the Bridgewater Trust who paid out £1,500, the Turnpike Commissioners £500, Thomas de Trafford £1,000 and Wilbraham Egerton £1,000.

Today, standing beside the weir you get little sense of the force of the river in full flood. In the winter there can be a pool of water at its base stretching out across the plain but on many occasion in the past on warm summer’s days even this bit of land can be bone dry.

And likewise the Kickety Brook seems just an overgrown and quite forgotten bit of water. The last time the weir took an overflow of flood water was 1915 when these two pictures were taken.

Pictures; Higgibotham's field in flood, 1946, from a painting by J Montgomery, 1963, m80092, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, and 1915 pictures from the Lloyd collection

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no.10 the ferry or the tunnel?

A short series on the pictures of Eltham and Woolwich in 1976.

For four decades the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the late ‘70’s sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; Woolwich circa 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson